This week’s meeting was attended by 34 members. Sam Badger brought a guest, Phil Phair, an IT consultant from Winnetka. In addition to our speaker, District Governor Ellen Young, the Assistant District Governor, Chris Webb, was also in attendance.
President Baker announced that our November 6th meeting would be held at the Takiff Center in Glencoe due to the Modernism and Antique Show at the Community House.
Liz Taylor announced that she and Gina Sich would be serving as ‘guest bartenders’ at Little Ricky’s on Wednesday October 15th. All of the tips they receive will go to support Operation Warm. Rich Lalley said that we are about halfway toward reaching our goal for this year in this project.
Bob Baker celebrated his 27th anniversary in Rotary!
Happy Buck$ this week came from Peter Skalski whose daughter was married in California, Fred Schwimmer who had a wonderful visit to Minnesota to see his daughter and grandchildren and Rich Lalley who rubbed it in with Bears’ fans for his beloved Packers’ victory over the hometown team. Rich also was thankful for those club members, Keith Reed, Mark Kotz, Tom Evans, Mike Malloy, David Birkenstein and Dave Gotaas who joined him in working at the Rotary booth which promoted Operation Warm at the Northfield Farmers’ Market the previous Saturday.
We had the pleasure of hearing a very inspirational speech from our District Governor, Ellen Young.
She reported that the number of refugees has exceeded50 million for the first time since WWII. Rotary International is trying to assist in the gigantic problem. Rotary is trying to live up to the theme of RI’s president to “Light up the World.” The various ways Rotary is trying to accomplish this is through the Youth Exchange Program, helping to alleviate world poverty through teaching people how to make a sustainable living, promoting literacy as a way out of poverty, improving lines of communication within Rotary clubs and between clubs and collaborating with other non-profits to enhance the human existence. Ellen urged us to look for other sources of funding for our projects. She also encouraged us to work on PR and get stories and pictures of our work and that of the District to the public media.
Governor Ellen also encouraged us to look for ways to inculcate in our younger generation the idea of ‘kids helping kids.’ Rotary has provided polio vaccines for 429 million children. We need to be sure that the next generation will be one that is concerned with helping their neighbors, near and far. It was obvious to those in attendance that we have a District Governor who is committed to the highest principles of Rotary.
Again this year, we ill be bringing the happiness and warmth of new